I’M LIKE AN ICEBERG
Picture: ANDY HOOPER
SOL CAMPBELL is sitting in a spartan first-floor room at a youth club on the outskirts of Knutsford, which serves as Macclesfield Town’s training ground. He is wearing a blue Macclesfield Town tracksuit. His hands rest on a formica table top. From the window, he sees a flat roof covered with gravel and, beyond it, a dirty green 3G football pitch. It is not much of a view.
This is football’s basement and Campbell is already thriving in it. He likes the parallels with the way he started his playing career. He was from a working-class family in a deprived part of London, kicking a ball around on the streets, scrabbling around trying to make it. He started at the bottom and worked his way up. It is not as if he is a stranger to adversity.
‘I have got to climb a mountain,’ Campbell says, opening his arms out wide. ‘But I look at it another way. I have the tools to climb the mountain so I don’t mind climbing mountains. I have climbed mountains since I was growing up in east London in Plaistow. I’m not scared of climbing mountains. When you get to the top, the view’s great. That’s what it’s all about.’
I have known Campbell for a long time, in the way that most journalists know most footballers: superficially. I have been to a lot of his press conferences down the years and watched a lot of his matches and interviewed him now and again. And I don’t think I have ever seen him as animated and as happy and as brimming with energy and enthusiasm as he is now.
Why? That is easy. He waited seven years f or t hi s opportunity. Seven years of wondering why he was being rejected by lowly clubs like Grimsby and Oldham for managerial positions, seven years of wondering why his 73 caps for England did not count for anything when it came to being given some responsibility, when it came to being trusted with leadership.
Seven years of growing dispirited at the lack of chances for aspiring black managers in our game, seven years of people saying his ambitions were overblown. Seven years of people saying he was a black man with a chip on his shoulder. Seven years of people saying: ‘ Sol really doesn’t help himself, does he?’
Seven years of studying for his UEFA B Licence, A Licence and his Pro Licence. Seven years of people saying he was lazy. Seven years of people saying he was a dilettante. Seven years of doing things right and still being ignored.
Seven years of stating his credentials and being laughed out of town. Seven years of seeing others get on the ladder. Seven years of seeing Frank Lampard get a job at Derby and Steven Gerrard get a job at Rangers.
And finally getting a post at Macclesfield Town, a League Two club that did not win a league game until October 20 this season, a club whose Moss Rose ground stands raised up on the edge of town at the beginning of the road to Leek, exposed and bitterly cold in winter, a club five points adrift at the bottom of the Football League when he took over. And still people said he did not deserve it and that he would be a disaster.
It is too early to make a judgment on that but the early signs are promising. Campbell was appointed Macclesfield manager at the end of November and the club have won three and drawn two of his eight games in charge. Despite conceding a late goal in a 2-1 loss to Swindon Town yesterday, they are already off t he bot t o m o f t he t a bl e . Campbell is thriving. ‘I don’t mind the hard work because this is what I want to do,’ he says. ‘I feel bloody happy about it. I feel at peace. I’m loving it. I like the responsibility.
‘I’m definitely in the right place because I still get butterflies in my belly. I’m confident, I’m nervous, all sorts of things. That tells me I’m alive. Half-time, when you have 15 minutes to change things, that’s me. I’m wired like that.’
Anyone searching for a sense that Campbell feels he is above the job will be disappointed. Anybody wondering i f he t hinks he is slumming it in League Two will quickly be disabused of that notion. Anybody searching for that sense of entitlement so often attributed to him will be greeted with the roar of laughter that echoes round the sparse room and bounces off the formica top.
‘I’m from the streets,’ Campbell says. ‘I’m a street footballer. I’m from Plaistow. Have you been to Plaistow recently? It has gone backwards. That’s where I’m from. I’m very open. I’ve been brought up properly by my family and I appreciate things.
‘But for my first 18 years, it was hardcore for me. From 14 and below, it was rough and ready. I saw a lot of stuff growing up as a young kid that I don’t want my kids seeing.
‘ People have to recognise I’m a working- cl ass l ad. Forget what I’ve done and where I’ve been.
I’m a working-class lad. I’ve come from nothing and I’ve not forgotten that. If it was below me to be at Macclesfield Town, I wouldn’t be here. It’s a fantastic job for me to take and I’m enjoying it.
‘People talk about entitlement but I’ve done the hard yards. I’ve done it the correct way with the coaching badges. I have done watching the games, I have done listening to managers, I have done travelling around Europe watching other managers train, I have done a bit of TV work to help with analysis. I’ve done all that.
‘If you put a microscope on what I’ve been doing, you start saying: “Wow, he has done all that?” That’s part of the trouble: I don’t think people know half the things I’ve done. I’ve done a lot of stuff behind the scenes. You would have seen me at games, talking to managers and agents. It’s like an iceberg with me — they don’t know half the stuff below the surface.
‘I was well prepared coming into this job. I’m adaptable. This was a fantastic opportunity for me to take and I took it. I could have been still waiting six months down the line. So now I’ve taken it, be happy.
‘I could be still waiting. I could have turned it down. But I’m a different mentality. As a player and a human being, as I structured my life, it was totally about football. And the passion is still there.’
Campbell is not interested in contrasting his job with the ones taken by Lampard and Gerrard. He does not feel any bitterness towards them. Now that he has gained a foothold in management, he wants it to be his sole focus. ‘It’s not where you start,’ he says. ‘It’s where you end up. It’s a good old saying and I think it’s true. Some people can be at the top and end up at the bottom. I want longevity.’
He has been a vociferous critic of the system. He has said he felt he would have been England captain for 10 years if he had not been black. His appointment brought the number of BAME managers in the league to eight at its 92 clubs, a healthier number than before but still not close to being representative of the number of black players in the four divisions.
Now, we have reached a situation in the game where a banana was thrown at a black player last year and where Raheem Sterling spoke out about the portrayal of black players in the media after he was abused at Stamford Bridge.
‘ I’ve stopped saying too much because people accused me of stuff,’ says Campbell. ‘ No one believed stuff I was saying. Some players tried and were hung out to dry. People say: “Here we go again.” It’s down to the authorities to take over and recognise that we have to do something as a body and make it everlasting.
‘I talked about it years ago and maybe I said too much. For media, on the screen and behind the screen and in newsprint, the building trade, the City, estate agents, if you have diversity in there, mentality changes. I’m not saying something left field.
‘Every time you build, if you stop building, ivy starts growing, or the grass starts growing. So you have to clean it and maintain it and build again. That’s like everything in life. It might have been a nice house 10 years ago but now it’s dusty and there are weeds. You think the problem’s finished but it’s not finished. It’s only dormant.’
Campbell has often referred back to his playing achievements, too, and been mocked for that. He was one of the best players in the world for a time but, when he pointed that out at his unveiling as Macclesfield Town manager six weeks ago, it led to more sniggering.
‘I had to talk about my playing career before because that was all I had,’ says Campbell. ‘I have all the qualifications but the only thing I didn’t have was a job. If you have to put something on the table, that was the only thing I could put on it. That was worth something. I draw upon it to help me go forward.
‘The only thing I can show people is how I conduct myself in the job as the manager of Macclesfield. That’s the only evidence I have. I’m starting again. Every manager had to start somewhere, so why can’t I start here?
‘I have been waiting for this a long time. I may look cool and calm but, underneath, I’m boiling inside with passion and ideas. Yes, it’s my first job but I’m up for it, pumped up, ready, focused, adaptable. You’ve got to be social as well. I’m ready for all that.
‘ I can understand people have their idea about me because they don’t know me. Once you work with me, you see very quickly what kind of guy I am. You can’t get to where I got to and sustain it if I didn’t have something. You have to be solid and proper. I know where I’m going.’
AND so Campbell works. He takes training every day. He sets the tone. He organises the sessions. He moves the goalposts. He puts out cones. He talks to agents. He works his contacts to try to bring in new players. He learns and he learns.
‘ We are a lot fitter and more tactically aware than we were when I arrived,’ says Campbell. ‘I worked them hard. The team was drifting in terms of mentality, training, how they were scheduling training, fitness. Everything was a bit slack. It was just drifting away.
‘You have to be a manager and a coach here. You really have to do it yourself or it doesn’t get done. I don’t mind rolling my sleeves up and getting dirty and sorting out the training pitches. That’s me. Maybe that’s surprised people. I can only show what I do. It’s back to basics and back to coaching. It’s an old school hierarchy.
‘I have to be pragmatic about the philosophy I want to impose but we are a good side. They are fantastic players for the level. We have been hampered by a few injuries but I saw enough talent. Yes, I’ve played with world-class players but these guys are really good for this level.
‘The more you put things on to get them tuned in, the more you teach them, then you get the best out of them and they can see how far they go. I love the idea of improving them. There is great satisfaction in that. I want to play football because passing and moving will get us out of this. If it’s too tight, we recognise it and do something different.
‘I want a team that is flexible and adaptable. When the time’s right, play out. When it’s not, don’t. I like the responsibility. That’s me. I’m like that as a human being. I like to lead. This is what it’s all about.’
When we have finished talking, Campbell walks back downstairs to the car park to say goodbye. A kid, maybe 16 or 17, comes around the corner and does a double-take. ‘Are you Sol Campbell?’ he asks. Campbell nods. ‘Arsenal legend,’ the kid says and yells to his mate to bring his phone so he can get a selfie. Campbell grins. It is a long, long way back to the top from here but the journey has started well.
‘I FEEL BLOODY HAPPY, I FEEL AT PEACE... I’M LOVING IT. I FEEL ALIVE’